ODNP had an eventful week to kick off the month of April! Both the Oregon Heritage Conference and the Oregon Library Association’s annual conference were scheduled at this time, and (with a little creative itinerary-juggling) ODNP staff were in attendance at both events.

Our Quality Control Specialist, John Taylor, started things off on Thursday morning, April 7th, with a ‘Showcase’ table session at OLA in Salem. The next day, John returned to Salem with Karen Estlund, ODNP Project Coordinator, and the two collaborated to present a talk and slide show. Geared to a specialist audience of librarians from throughout the state, Karen and John’s presentation concentrated on process and technical matters–METS, ALTO, OCR–the “nuts and bolts” of running a major digitization project in an academic library.

While they were busy in Salem, Project Manager Jason Stone was in attendance April 7-9 at the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department’s annual Heritage Conference. The conference was held this year in Astoria, as that historic Oregon community is celebrating its bicentennial in 2011. Jason represented ODNP in the Premier Plenary Session of “leading players on the Oregon heritage stage,” and he was also a panelist for a featured discussion, ‘Heritage Collaborations the Statewide Way.’ Even more than talking about ODNP, Jason enjoyed attending various conference sessions and listening to heritage stars from throughout the State of Oregon and beyond.

Karen, John and Jason came away with some new insights and fresh ideas for moving ODNP forward. Best of all, it was another great opportunity to share the news about Historic Oregon Newspapers with the professional communities of librarians and historical preservationists. We found that many were already regular visitors of our Beta site. Word is definitely getting out!

Thanks to the Oregon Library Association and Oregon Heritage Commission for inviting us to participate in these events.